It has come to my attention after reading numerous blogs on the “Friends of Ioane” WordPress Blog Site that a good and honest man has been put in Federal prison for no apparent reason except perhaps a political one. His name is Michael Scott Ioane. He was sentenced by Judge Lawrence J. O’Neil in the Federal court for the Eastern District of California, to nine years in the Federal Penitentiary. The crime was Defrauding the U.S. Government. Recently the sentence was appealed and overturned by the 9th District Court of Appeals. Mr. Ioane was released into house arrest, where he is forced to be monitored day and night, not allowed to be gainfully employed, and forced to pay for his own Federally mandated GPS bracelet.

From what I have read this completely nonsensical charade started because another man, Dr. S.V. Booth of Bakersfield, CA ,was judged by the IRS to owe them back taxes. In order to pay for this tax burden they wanted to seize property that they mistakenly believed belonged to Dr. Booth. It did not. It had been put in a trust for his children in 1995. In 1996, Booth and his wife divested themselves of all interest in these 3 properties and gave them over to the trust’s managers. This was three years before Dr. Booth and his wife ever met Michael Ioane!

Sometime in 2004, the IRS began to make a criminal case against Dr. Booth, saying his trusts were shams and they were used to hide the properties from the IRS. (Ridiculous on the face of it, since they knew exactly where the properties were and how they had changed hands over the past ten years!) They knew that Michael Ioane had been hired by the trustees (not Dr. Booth), to manage these trusts. In the meantime, Acacia Corporate Management LLC and Michael Ioane had purchased interest in the properties; Acacia holding 95% and Ioane holding 5% of the investment. At the time the IRS began asking Dr. Booth for the money and attempting to put liens and levies on the said properties, Dr. Booth made the testimony under oath in a court of law that Mr. Ioane and Acacia had nothing to do with the management or foundation of Booth’s initial trusts. After several years of arm-twisting and mob-like thug tactics by the IRS they convinced Dr. Booth to recant his testimony and place Michael Ioane in harm’s way by saying he was some sort of evil Svengali who had made Booth give him and Acacia the properties for free! Booth, at the behest of Mark E. Cullers, perjured himself in a court of law, convincing a judge and jury that Michael Ioane somehow had access to these properties from the beginning, had defrauded the Federal govt. by hiding the properties in sham trusts, and was a con artist! This slander and libel convinced the jury to incarcerate Michael Ioane! They released Dr. Booth. Yet, it was Dr. Booth who owed the IRS money, not Ioane. Ioane was dragged into a trial for which he was ill-prepared. He lost the case and the Judge sentenced him to an extensive prison term! Yet not one shred of evidence of Ioane’ wrong –doing or any criminal conspiracy was ever admitted into evidence. The evidence admitted was circumstantial and came from a raid by the IRS which was later disputed. At the time it was Judge O’Neil, acting as a Magistrate who gave the IRS a vague and ill-worded search warrant. When the warrant was disputed, Judge O’Neil took it upon himself to uphold the warrant, after he was appointed a Federal Justice! He should have recused himself altogether from this case. Instead he colluded with the IRS to jail and innocent man!

The outrage is this. At no time did Ioane ever help Booth create any trust. As a competent business leader in his community, he made suggestions to the trustee board on the already legal and established trusts, in how to fight the IRS claims. It is NOT illegal to dispute any IRS claim. Nor is it illegal for property to be passed and sold from one trust to another. What is illegal is trying to dissolve a trust, which is established for the good of minor children, without giving them a Guardian Ad Litem. Which is exactly what Judge Lawrence O’Neil and the IRS tried to do. It is also illegal to try to persuade a person in prison, that he will get a better “deal” if he just deeds over said properties back to Dr. Booth, and so reconvict himself as a fraud!

This Sir is a criminal conspiracy, and it was perpetrated by a Federal Judge, officers of the court and the IRS! It was done because Michael Ioane, as they found out, was the author of the “Boston Tea Party Book.” Because Ioane understood the law as regards asset protections, (the same ones used by Dick Cheney or Mitt Romney and other wealthy persons) he was deemed suspect of criminal intent and prosecuted selectively and vindictively because he was seen to be a threat to the govt. All this is well documented with legal documents and testimonies throughout the various blogs I have read on the Friends of Michael Ioane site.

I believe an innocent man, who was also a thorn in the side of the IRS and the Federal government was unjustly marked for imprisonment and silence, in a concerted conspiracy between the IRS and the Fresno court. Because he chose jail over making a deal with the powers of that court, he has at least been given a second chance to defend himself. However, I am aghast that your offices are being thus misused by Federal agents in Fresno. I am also upset that my money as a tax payer, is going towards this strange campaign to convict a Bakersfield chiropractor and an Asset manager working for a strong, legal, and protective Asset Management corporation, of high crimes against the Federal govt. while drug dealers, murderers, human slave traders and others go scott free! The govt. is spending my hard earned money to try and get money which is not owed them, and to steal properties they have no right to, while at the same time stifling business, ruining people’s lives and reputations, and stealing money from minor children! You should read this blog site Mr. Holder. It has a wealth of information about how your office is completely in collusion with the Fresno court to strong-arm money from good tax-paying citizens. The stink of the power brokering and favoritism of that court in Fresno is about to be wafted to the general public at this critical juncture during a national election. I believe it is time you took note and investigated this mess!

Recently a motion was drawn up for the Michael S. Ioane case that really says it all as concerns my investigation. In my last post, I noted that finally Michael Scott Ioane has been vindicated in his pursuit of justice from the Fresno District Court for Eastern California. Judge Ishii finally signed the motion to dismiss all of the IRS and Dr. Booth’s frivolous and confusing suits. Judge Ishii agrees with my investigative findings that the IRS and Booth were simply muddying the civil waters of a Real Estate case in order to give the IRS time to make a criminal case. However, in their haste, they forgot one thing. They forgot that the properties that the IRS was seeking to seize from Booth did not belong to Booth. They belonged to a trust. I will let the attorney who wrote the motion explain.

“This is an action involving a purchase of three pieces of real property, purchased by Acacia Corporate Management, LLC from Bakersfield Properties and Trust Company (a California irrevocable trust), on December 5, 2005, whose beneficiaries are the minor children of Dr. Vincent Steven Booth. The only relation to Bakersfield Properties and Trust Company that Dr. Vincent Steven Booth has is that his minor children are the owners/beneficiaries.

In the year of 2000, Bakersfield Properties and Trust Company purchased from Alpha Omega and Aligned the three separate pieces of Bakersfield real estate subject in this litigation, and the Booth’s minor children where owners of those trusts at the time. Also, Dr. Vincent Booth and his Wife Louise Booth, in 1995 entered an arrangement with their then CPA James Baker and attorney John Reedy; whereas they alienated their ownership interest in two of the subject properties in a “quit claim” deed. (5707 Murifield Drive, Bakersfield, CA and 5717 Roundup Way, Bakersfield,CA), by transferring first one to the other all ownership interest and then transferring all rights, title and interest of the two real properties into Alpha Omega Trust, an irrevocable California trust, sometime in 1995, whose beneficiaries again, were the minor children of the Booths. The property known as 1927 21st Street, Bakersfield, CA , was purchased by Aligned Enterprises Trust, also an irrevocable California trust, in 1996. At this time the Booths owned no interest in the properties or in the trusts.

As of today, no Guardian Ad Litem has been appointed to represent the minor children’s interest in the subject real properties and trusts.

Currently Mariposa Holding Inc. and Acacia Corporate Management, LLC owes Southern Financial Trust and Bakersfield Properties a combination of approximately $900,000 because of having used various purchases contract agreements, deeds of trust and promissory notes rather than a cash settlement. Mariposa Holding Inc. and Acacia Corporate Management, LLC since about 2006, have been stopped from paying the $900,000.00 owed those entities because of the wrongfully filed IRS nominee Liens, Levies and because of pending litigation not excluding this case.

The IRS justify their interference in the performance of the agreements/payment by claiming the transactions were fraudulent transfers intended to avoid paying an alleged IRS debt of Dr. Booth. The Government further argues Acacia Corporate Management, LLC does not own the real property, and most recently have claimed that Acacia Corporate Management, LLC is some sort of fake entity designed to hide Dr. Booth’s assets. These arguments are of course without foundation, preposterous and contradicted other judicial positions the government and IRS have taken, (next, if the court allows, the government will argue that Mr. Ioane is an alien from Mars, not a human being, and has no rights on the planet earth).

If the IRS would allow Mariposa Holding Inc., and Acacia Corporate Management, LLC to pay the estimated $900,000 to Southern Financial Trust and Bakersfield Properties (who are allegedly the alter egos of Dr. Booth), then Booth’s stipulated tax liability of $207,000 plus penalties and interest could be paid.

Acacia Corporate Management, LLC, Mariposa Holding Inc. and Michael Scott Ioane, prior to this litigation and prior to any of the criminal allegations, have desperately attempted to pay off the deeds of trust and promissory notes. (Alleged in this case by the IRS to be bogus), to Bakersfield Properties and Southern Financial, but, for some reason someone at the IRS refuses to allow those payments and continues with the bizarre and unfounded allegations of conspiracy to defraud, fraudulent transfer of real property, and now that since to them Acacia does not exist, what is next?

(Basically this all came about because the IRS didn’t understand that real estate can be, and often is purchased, not with cash, but with promissory notes, stocks, bonds, and trading in other types of perfectly legal financial instruments. Because the properties were not paid off fully and were held with a small amount of cash, the IRS believed that the properties were not being purchased for their full value. In other words, the IRS is not very smart in the ways of finance. All they understand is cash! Because of this, they completely screwed up a great financial deal that would in the end, have benefited the Booth’s minor children, the IRS and Booth’s tax burden all in one fell swoop! Tom.)

The attorney goes on to say:

This non-sense has gone on now for almost 6 years. The IRS placed nominee liens and levies on Mariposa Holding Inc. and Acacia Corporate Management LLC’s real property and cash making such payment impossible, just so they could prove something that did not exist. I guess this wasted time and effort does not matter, since the USA tax payer is paying the bill for this frivolous litigation, the attorneys get their federal pay check and pension while the American people stand in unemployment lines.

What the attorney does not mention, is that dissolving or even toying with a trust which is in the hands of minor children without the benefit of a Guardian ad litem to defend the children is a FELONY CRIME in the state of California. The IRS and Dr. Booth’s “nonsense” should be getting them into some really hot water right about now! You do not steal from children and get away with it. Of course, if they hire a guardian, then they are saying that the trusts are all real and above board! So they would lose their case which states the trusts are frauds…a case by the way, no one has proven. My opinion, the IRS should drop the case, drop all charges, let the bill get paid and let everyone get on with their lives.

Meanwhile the IRS continues to build bad cases against decent people with frivolous claims disregarding the laws of the State of California and Federal Law as well as abusing the civil rights of American citizens. Government salaried agents, judges and officials are simply misspending millions of dollars of tax-payer money in order to justify their jobs and astronomical salaries.

And, how the hell did Judge Lawrence O’Neil authorize a plea-bargain agreement for Dr. S. Booth that said he should dissolve trusts which did not belong to him, without the appointment of a Guardian Ad Litem? This Judge O’Neil is supposedly a graduate of Hastings Law School. He had to have known that when a trust involving minor children is involved, there has to be safeguards for those children’s rights. This is basic Law 101. Is he simply stupid, senile or criminal? I believe the latter. I believe he is corrupt and was trying to assist his various friends at the local Fresno IRS office; where one of his close, personal friends is prosecutor Mark E. Cullers. So that they all just happened to overlook the fact that four minor children were being ripped off by the government!

Recently it has been uncovered the “Fast and Furious” guns to Mexico case was completely unknown to Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. Apparently the entire thing was devised and overseen in the Phoenix offices of the Arizona ATF! This may be what is happening in Fresno, a small team of corrupt officials lording it over the justice system for their own benefit and not letting their Washington bosses in on anything. Hopefully one of Holder’s people will be researching his name and see this blog and then someone can get to the bottom of this case. By all means the IRS must be stopped from ripping off innocent children!

Finally Judge Ishii of the Fresno court has made a decision, basically stating that all of the Booth’s lawsuits be dismissed. This means the IRS can no longer manipulate Booth, forcing him to try to acquire back the three Bakersfield Properties that have been in dispute for some twelve or more years. Score one for Mike Ioane!

But as I read this, I was thinking, didn’t those trusts belong to the Booth’s minor children? If so, why was no Guardian ad litem ever appointed to protect the children’s interests? What is a guardian ad litem? I took this definition off the “Free Dictionary by Farlex…”

“ad litem adj. legal Latin meaning “for the purposes of the legal action only.” Most often the term applies to a parent who files a lawsuit for his or her minor child as “guardian at litem” (guardian just for the purposes of the lawsuit) or for a person who is incompetent. Either at the time the lawsuit is filed or shortly thereafter, the parent petitions the court to allow him/her to be guardian ad litem, which is brought ex parte (without a noticed hearing) and is almost always granted. A person acting ad litem has the responsibility to pursue the lawsuit and to account for the money recovered for damages. If a child in such a lawsuit reaches majority (18 in most states) while the suit is pending, the ad litem guardianship terminates and the “new” adult can run his/her own lawsuit. Some courts require an order terminating the guardianship ad litem upon proof of coming of age. (See: guardian ad litem)

This all begs the question: Why did the IRS and the Fresno Court system try to steal properties from trusts that were held in the name of the minor children of Dr. and Mrs. Steven V. Booth of Bakersfield, CA?

Since there were minor children involved, the court was to make sure a Guardian ad litem was appointed. By not appointing such a guardian, the govt. and the court and Dr. Booth himself, were basically able to take the properties and begin to haggle over them in order to attain them and sell them off for money, leaving the children bereft of their inheritance. Basically this is theft from minor children for whom the govt. and the court system showed no regard.

Further Dr. Booth had been ordered to dissolve all the trusts in a previous court case. And these trusts were never dissolved. Therefore they remain intact and still the property of the Booth’s minor children. Yet to date, no one has ever defended their inheritance. To dissolve the trusts without benefit of a Guardian ad litem would be a felony crime in the state of California. So 0nce again both the Fresno court and the IRS along with Dr. Booth himself, are attempting to commit a felony crime against the true beneficiaries of the three disputed Bakersfield properties in the trusts. Booth’s own children!

In the on-going case against the IRS, the facts assert that Mike Ioane was being prosecuted in a selective and vindictive manner based on “individious discriminatory animus” (Latin for being singled out because of personal animosity). He goes on to state that he feels the prosecutor in his case (i.e. Mark Cullers), holds personal animosity towards him for the reason that Mike Ioane was involved in “protected First Amendment and political activity.” Or to put it more bluntly the US government tried to jail him for two reasons. One is that he basically wrote the book that established the now well-known Tea Party. His book: The Boston Tea Party was written and published in 1998. People began connecting with Ioane in a political dialogue in 2000. It became the foundation for some of the political ideals and platforms of the Tea Party which arose during the housing crisis of 2007/2008. It seems, if one looks into the facts of Mike Ioane’s battle with the IRS, this publication factors in greatly as being one of the reasons the U.S. Government wants Ioane in jail and his free speech stifled.

The basic legal idea of Selective and Vindictive Prosecution is that, though a prosecutor has a lot of lee-way in bringing just about anyone before a court to be prosecuted, there are certain things which cannot and must not apply when prosecution is begun. #1. Is that race, creed, color, national origin or gender/sexual preference cannot be a prime factor for bringing someone up on charges. #2. Political affiliations, and the fact that a person has written a book, published and article or otherwise spoken out against the government is not an excuse to prosecute someone either…especially if the material is not discussing any treasonous acts or asking people to break any laws or commit any acts of violence, etc. {Bordenkircher, 434 U.S. at 364, including the exercise of constitutional rights. Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 372}.

Ioane’s Boston Tea Party book was more of a treatise on how to protect one’s assets and property from government pilfering. It explained things like charitable trusts, blind trusts, tax havens and other things like using the already extent tax-loopholes within the tax codes to keep one’s property safe from exorbitant or unwarranted taxes. It was a How-To book, not a political manifesto. Many of these various asset protection theories are in use by the very rich and have always been used to good effect by many well-known upstanding U.S. citizens. There is no law that says you cannot make it hard for the government to take your property. However Ioane now offered this information to the masses so that even “the little guy” can now form a protective trust. (My 75 year old mother is doing that as we speak). And the government of the United States under both the Republicans and the Democrats, have resented anyone telling us how to prevent the government from abusing us or stealing from us.

The second reason the IRS was upset enough to secure a criminal prosecution in what amounted to nothing more than a personal tax case by Dr. S.V. Booth, Chiropractor, is that Mike Ioane also sued the govt. twice and was in the process of winning those suits when the IRS claimed he had committed a crime against them. The IRS is notorious for not liking it when people win suits against them, which from the look of things, happens about 80% of the time. The IRS isn’t very good at defending themselves against lawsuits. So they resort to other measures. Like trying to lock people up for no good reason. Seems in this case they couldn’t even do that right.

At the time of this writing Mike had already served time in the Lompoc Federal Prison Camp for alleged tax fraud. He had been released in 2011 pending appeal; The Ninth Circuit Court issued very strong language indicating that Ioane would be successful upon completion of his appeal. Basically overruling Judge Lawrence O’Neil’s harsh sentence and ordering Ioane released. Also, according to law he should not have been sentenced until a “monetary amount owed” had been figured by the IRS which Dr. Booth (not Ioane), would have to pay. No such amount was ever offered to the court, because the IRS didn’t know who owed what to whom or how much! His release from Federal custody on these grounds was unprecedented. When the Feds lock someone up, they almost invariably stay locked up. Now they are scrambling to make a new case because Ioane has once again embarrassed them by getting his appeal heard and a release granted.

The point of the matter is this: Mike Ioane was singled out and brought up on charges by a government hell bent on pilfering private property and putting the man who wrote the book on the Tea Party in jail, so as to prevent publication of any other materials they did not approve of. This is called Tyranny. Exactly what the Boston Tea Party fought against in 1773 and what the new Tea Party is fighting against today.

Everyone in this country is guaranteed equal treatment under our laws. That means one cannot prosecute someone simply because they don’t like their politics or their business. Still it is nearly impossible for a person to overcome a government prosecution based on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution motion because a person has to prove that the prosecution is in fact, abrogating their rights or picking on them because of their color, sex, age, etc. Usually this type of motion is dismissed out of hand by most judges because there is simply too much of a grey area involved. However in this case the facts would seem to indicate that indeed, Mike Ioane was selected out of a host of other people under similar threat of prosecution by the IRS, solely because he was the writer of a politically charged book and fought back against IRS tyranny in a court of law.

When the government convicted Ioane of a major felony fraud, this put him into a new kind of jeopardy. According to the Patriot Act any person found guilty of a misdemeanor or felony crime, said person can considered a “terrorist.” A terrorist suspect can be detained indefinitely without trial. He can be “disappeared,” so that no one, friends or relatives will ever hear from him again. He can be held in prisons in foreign countries and have no access to an attorney or even a fair trial. Suddenly free speech rights, in fact all civil rights are completely torn from a citizen and being an American becomes meaningless. One may as well be a Serbian or an Afghan. You can be thrown in a dark hole and forgotten. Thankfully, though the government accused Ioane publicly of being a con-man and a criminal, Ioane has many friends that vouched for his character. Only the judge was able to see who those people were.

Presently Ioane and his attorney have actually called for the prosecutors and instigators of the case against him, to be subpoenaed before the court so he might prove Selective and Vindictive Prosecution. Turning the tables on them, he determined that his accusers should be seen as abusers. His list is as follows:

Ioane’s attorney wants charges brought against this group of almost untouchable IRS agents, attorneys and court officials which, should such a case be heard by the court, might shake the Fresno court and perhaps the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments to their very foundations.

The charges include: Failure of the IRS to remove liens from properties which they did not have legal right to seize. The IRS producing and working under wrongful and illegal search warrants, signed by a judge who was not empowered ot authorize a warrant, and said warrants used to search private residences and abscond with personal money and valuables. (For which Ioane sued them). The IRS’ constantly assailed the court with motions to dismiss all of Ioane’s lawsuits and motions against them based on the fact that, well, they are the IRS and can do as they please to whom they please for whatever reasons they please. The IRS, having gone through several civil cases against Ioane never once indicated that there was any evidence or even allegations of criminal wrongdoing on his part. Yet they used all these cases against him as evidence in their prosecution that he was obstructing them and attempting to defraud the government! They did this because they lost most of the cases. They were so angry that one agent complained anonymously to the court that “TP (Ioane: The Plaintiff) files frivolous lawsuits against IRS employees so I need to document my case history accurately.” The IRS never once looked into any of the violations reported to them by Ioane, which is why he felt compelled to sue them. All this was done well before the criminal case was instigated.

The facts suggest that Ioane was a constant thorn in the side of the IRS and the courts and that they decided to prosecute him, not because of any real crime, but simply because they hated what he was doing to them. The IRS was so aggravated they even accused Ioane of “reading a speech document;” (in this case it was a document dealing with protecting one’s assets…) as if reading anything about one’s own business was somehow prohibited by law! This is an indicator that the government regarded asset protection pamphlets as they would some politically charged treatise on how to build a homemade bomb! It was certain the IRS and Treasury wanted to abrogate Ioane’s rights and make him stop thinking, acting or even reading for his own benefit. The IRS visited this egregious tyranny against his freedom of speech, but not upon any of the others, they threatened or cajoled.

Ioane’s attorney goes on to claim that the government, as well as the courts are upset with the Boston Tea Party Book, and has punished the defendant, profiling him as the creator and leader of the Tea Party political movement. The Boston Tea Party book was published in 1998 and defendant started the genesis of the Tea Party movement in year 2000. No doubt that the result being spread far and wide has caused Ioane and those associated with him concern and political motivation to put this defendant away or to stop him from furthering the Constitutional objective of the party.

Ioane’s attorney further claims that the IRS under the directive of Mark Cullers threatened and brow-beat witnesses to make false claims and deliver false testimony in order to entrap Ioane in crimes he did not commit. The IRS claims that he was setting up “sham” trusts to hide money for his clients, or to sway his clients to make claims and proceed against the government in order to defraud them, are completely spurious. Ioane had been paid to work as a trust manager for a group of trustees for the Booth’s trusts. The Booths were not involved in said trusts any longer. The trustees and their attorneys were giving Ioane his orders, not the other way around. Yet the IRS insisted Ioane was some evil-mastermind criminal who was into vague money-laundering schemes and forcing others to defraud the government. Even at his trial, they brought up no clear evidence of such a crazy claim. The IRS relied solely on the hearsay testimony of false witnesses whom they themselves had paid off through plea bargaining agreements, or on whom they used strong-arm tactics. Iaone’s attorney further indicts the U.S. Dept. of Justice of having full knowledge of Cullers’ machinations and who might have been helping Cullers secure a conviction based on false evidence and hearsay from witnesses who were being manipulated by the State.

A list of the various Booth Trustees is as follows:

Lorien McCan

Margaret Squires

Dr.John James Inis jr.

Jean Annette Liascos

Dr. Thomas T. Rios

It should be noted here that every one of these people colluded with the IRS by perjuring themselves on the stand, claiming they had never had meetings. That they had done everything he demanded they do by some form of osmosis. That they had signed documents at Dr. Booth’s behest that they did not understand or had even read. And they claimed they were all working under the influence of Dr. Booth to hide the Bakersfield Properties from the government tax-man! Dr. Booth of course in perjured testimony said that Mike Ioane was his “Svengali” and had made him do everything he did, even before he ever heard of Ioane! Quite a trick!

Now a “Trustee” is supposed to be a trustworthy, smart and responsible individual entrusted with the Trust monies and properties, which they hold (in this case for the Booth’s children), until which time these trusts are turned over to the beneficiaries. Does this sound like a group of smart, erudite and capable individuals? Should such stupid people, bending to the will of the person they hired, be allowed to be in such a position of trust? These are people who don’t read documents, who sign the papers without reading them, who have no idea what a trust is or how it functions. One, Dr. Thomas T. Rios had previously been investigated by the IRS and found to have overcharged his patients through various programs like insurance and Medicare and taken the ill-gotten gains and himself stashed them in sham trusts! He had also been extorting money from Dr. Booth, his employer, because he was going to tell the IRS that Booth had sham trusts and hidden money as well! He was more than willing to perjure himself to get money from Dr. Booth. To keep the IRS from auditing him Booth paid him! $30,000 a month! (He should have had him arrested, but that’s another story).Yet Dr. Rios was one of the trustees of one of Booth’s trusts! Rios employed Ioane. Not the other way around. This criminal was running the trust, not Ioane. So you have a pack of ner-do-wells and a criminal extortionist in charge of Booths’ trusts…all suddenly pointing the finger at Mike Ioane. Seems a little too pat, doesn’t it? Sounds like a case of the criminal blaming the victim.

Ioane’s attorney also calls out a list of other people who were a part of the case against him. These were people who were also abused by the IRS. Each one was directed by Mark Cullers and his team of thugs to libel Ioane and to further perjure themselves, lying to judge and jury about their own dealings in business, medical practices, and finances, because they were terrified of going up against the IRS. There are indications that some of these “witnesses” and others under the scrutiny of the IRS may have made pay-offs to certain agents, in order to garner preferential treatment, for certainly not one of them is being prosecuted for anything, even though the IRS threatened each of them in some way with prosecution or action against their financial security. It seems that the IRS wanted to make Mike Ioane out to be a “Big Fish” in an organized criminal conspiracy to defraud them, without one shred of solid evidence that there was even a pond for these fish to swim around in (i.e. a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the IRS), and without convicting one of the “little fish” for anything more than failing to pay a tax burden.

This list of others involved in the case are as follows:

1. Real Estate Developer Bob Bell. For a long time the IRS interviewed him and apparently threatened him with audits and prosecution, prior to the indictment of Booth and Ioane. He was continually informed by IRS agents that he was involved in money laundering, tax evasion, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy with Booth and the trustees we named.

2. Attorney Michael Mears. Wworked for Bob Bell and also worked with Attorney John Reedy, since about 2002 or earlier regarding the Treble LLC investment and real estate development, which involved Southern Financial Services, Bakersfield Properties and Trust Company, and Treble LLC.

3. Attorney Steve Dakes of Dake-Braun-Monje. These folks reviewed the trusts and never informed Ioane there was a problem. Attorney Steven Dake was one of the Attorneys representing the above referenced trusts subject of the indictment.

5. Certified Public Accountant Clark Hurst of Bakersfield. Who stated to Ioane that Mr. Booth had employed his services since 2005 and is currently using the services of Mr. Hurst. Ioane had heard Mr. Hurst state that nothing was wrong with how Mr. Booth operated his business using various entities and corporations and that he, Clark Hurst took his instructions from Attorney John Reedy.

6. Attorney Michael Kia. Wrote letters to the IRS setting up appointments for defendant Booth. He never told Ioane that defendant Booth was committing any crimes and he would discuss Booths IRS disputes in detail with Ioane.

7. Attorney John Reedy. Defendant Steven Booth’s general counsel and corporate attorney, created and managed the Booth Corporations and trusts, wrote letters to the IRS and Inspector general regarding the allegations in the current indictment several years prior to any indictment being returned. Attorney John Reedy was in continual communication with Special agents at the IRS office and the AUSA regarding the alleged illegally created entities and even wrote communications indicating that he created and managed those entities. Dr. Thomas Rios, (who plead guilty to tax evasion, unrelated to Booth entities and got probation), Margaret Squires, Dr. John James Inis Jr., Jean Annette Liascos, Dr. Loren McCan, were all trustees of Booth’s and Reedy’s created trusts. Assuredly if these people had conspired to hide properties, wouldn’t the IRS want to prosecute them all?

8. Attorney Mark Lane. Mr. Lane contacted AUSA office after Steve Booth’s home was raided in March of 2006. Ioane recalls that he informed the IRS that the raid had no merit and that his client’s rights were being violated.

9. Attorney Eric Fogderude, is more than directly involved since he worked with defendant Steven Booth regarding a civil contempt matter, (specifically related to each and every allegation of the indictment, in 2005.

In the end not one of these people were ever prosecuted or even as vigorously investigated as was Michael Ioane. Not one was accused of collusion, or tax-evasion, or conspiracy to hide properties. Mr. Bell even claimed that he had given the Federal agents over $400,000, (subsequently this money has gone missing and the agent that took it, Michael Hoos, now under investigation). It is my own conclusion that indeed Michael Ioane was selected to be prosecuted for political reasons. I think especially for the reason that he instigated law suits that embarrassed and tied the hands of the government and courts in their headlong rush to find a crime that was not committed by criminals which did not exist and to steal properties which did not rightly belong to them in order to pay a alleged tax-burden that was completely made up out of the whole cloth. To the government Mr. Ioane is an irritant. So therefore by their logic, he must be guilty of…something.

Just like the badly planned and executed sales of guns to the Mexican Drug Cartels by Federal agents called Operation Fast And Furious, this foray into crime stopping did not work out well for the Obama Administration. They were seeking to trace the guns and entrap the cartels in what became a debacle when they realized they had no real way to track the weapons, and worse, said weapons were later used in the killing of a border patrol agent! This Selective and Vindictive Prosecution of one man who wrote a book the government doesn’t like, is another example of a badly planned, executed and expensive Federal operation that has lead nowhere. They have produced nothing but an opinion that some crime was committed by someone somewhere…but apparently they have yet to determine for sure what went down. So they made up a story, used tax-payer funds to play pretend with the California and Federal court system, and hurt a lot of innocent people in their little game of corruption and collusion. In order to protect their jobs and reputations they are continuing to try to make bogus cases against Booth and Ioane. This is just another Obama Administration bad idea in a growing list of bad ideas.

What was Special Agent Spjute looking for when he took out a search warrant, signed by an unauthorized judge, and took a raiding party to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Booth? It would be difficult to determine since the warrant didn’t specify anything at all. Not records, illegal weapons, drugs or other contraband. The warrant was so vague that it seemed to give the IRS carte-blanche to take away anything and everything they wanted…even if it didn’t prove their case! What was their case? Apparently the IRS was looking for something to show evidence that the Booths had colluded and conspired with one another to hide money and properties from them. Yet, when a search warrant is issued by a judge it is usually very specifically oriented towards finding evidence of some crime, distribution of controlled substances, murder, grand theft, so that the agents and officers would be looking for cocaine, or a murder weapon, blood stained clothes or perhaps jewelry or large amounts of untraceable money. Attempting to hide property in a trust is really not much of a crime. It doesn’t seem to warrant a full house search. It doesn’t really even warrant an investigation. Unless they are trying to make putting money and property in a legal trust into some sort of Federal Crime.

This is only one of the warrants Special Agent Spjute ordered during the criminal investigation of the Booths in order to intimidate them and get them to spill the beans about their master criminal conspiracy to hide their medical office building, personal residence and mother’s personal residence from the IRS…(hidden so carefully five years before the IRS ever knew who they were). Oh yes, Agent Spjute was good at his job. He worked under the direction of Mark E. Cullers, making sure America was safe from the evil tax-evading chiropractors that roamed Bakersfield in feral packs! He built a case that made the Booths look like Al Capone. Swearing they owed nearly four million dollars in back taxes. He must have thought they had hidden the loot in garbage bags under the floorboards. Spjute went after his prey like a bulldog, harassing and brow beating witnesses along with Revenue Officer Michael Hoos and Revenue Officer Fred Chynoweth. Basically these men were strong-arm thugs hired by the IRS to bring the Booths to heel. All very melodramatic. All very high-handed. All very costly to the American Tax-Payer. After all the Booths and others these men investigated were not leaders of a drug cartel or masterminds of some vast criminal conspiracy. Yet this is how the IRS treats all “suspects.” Time they got a clue. This is not the 1930’s, they aren’t looking for Machine Gun Kelly or Lucky Luciano! They are trying to squeeze money out of plumbers, chiropractors, asset management analysts and real estate investors. Time to put a leash on these government thugs.

The IRS agents always travel in pairs. Apparently so they can play “Bad Cop-Worse Cop.” Fred Chynoweth was Kent Spjute’s partner in IRS crime during the Booth criminal case. This means whatever Mark Cullers did that was wrong, these three agents, Hoos, Spjute and Chynoweth helped him to do. Whether it was to bring false allegation, write false reports, conspire to sway witnesses with threats, or to produce falsified testimonies and documents, these two were “all-in.” It was Fred Chynoweth though, who actually stood at Bob Bell’s desk and shouted at him that he would come under a special IRS full audit if he did not say exactly what the IRS wanted him to say. He made sure Bell knew that his company would be tied into Booth’s “sham trusts” in that audit. Fred Chynoweth took it upon himself to tell Bob Bell in no uncertain terms that Booth’s trusts were sham trusts because one had traded stock in another company for a deed of trust, instead of using cash to buy the stocks. As if this were somehow against the law. His ignorance of finance and the law is basically what the whole government case is riding on! He claimed Booth’s original trusts were shams. They were shams why? Because Fred Chynoweth SAID they were, based on some nonsensical idea he had about financing a sale. By bullying Bob Bell, Fred Chynoweth actually helped Booth lose a two million dollar sale when Bell backed out of his strip-mall deal with Steve Booth. The proceeds of which could have gone to pay Booth’s tax burden. Now that money is unrecoverable. Chynoweth scared Bell off from the sale, turned him into a witness for the prosecution. A prosecution which will inevitably fail, because no one has done anything wrong. Is this all some mark of hatred that Cullers and the IRS and perhaps the whole Obama administration has for free-enterprise?

It was Fred Chynoweth who terrorized Booth’s poor mother. He actually served Dr. Steven Booth’s Alzheimer’s stricken mother, Reba Booth, with a fake Grand Jury Subpoena, scaring the woman into believing her son was going to be put in jail. In fact the Grand Jury had not even been convened. Apparently this sort of scare-tactic is well used by the IRS and law enforcement. This act is patently illegal since Chynoweth had no jurisdiction to serve such a subpoena, since no agent working on a case can also work for the Grand Jury. This alone should get Fred Chynoweth fired. It just shows how over-the-top these revenue agents really are. Something tells me he wouldn’t be so gung-ho facing down a gun-runner or mobster…but an old-lady in ill-health? That’s an easy mark for a thug. Time to put a stop to these greasy “leg-breaker” tactics and break up the IRS mob for good! Perhaps what this country needs is a group of lawyers to step-up, put together a massive class-action law suit against the IRS and force the government to disband this entire agency? I know about a 100 million tax payers who would love to sign their name to a lawsuit like this!

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Friends of Michael S. Ioane is a blog for postings from various authors. We are dedicated to news and information regarding how the Justice Department aids and abets the IRS in criminal activities with special emphasis on the Eastern District Court of California.
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